How Do Risk and Protective Factors Work Together?
Personality, availability of social supports, and family cohesion are often identified as categories of factors that can impact a child positively or negatively. Researchers define personality factors as internal characteristics found in every child, including the child’s intellectual ability and approach to learning, attitude and disposition, self-esteem, and impulse control. Social support availability factors are whether or not the child has advocates at home, at school, and elsewhere in the community. Family cohesion includes family structure and background characteristics such as the parent’s occupation, family income, parent education, parental mental illness, parenting style, race and ethnicity, and family size. Family cohesion factors also include life events such as divorce, remarriage, death, and other changes that can influence child development [11; 13] . Elements of each of the three categories can serve as either risk or protective factors. For instance, researchers regar
